Nancy Riffer

Hi,
I'm Nancy Riffer and I live in upstate New York, about 20 miles south of the areas that have gotten over 100 inches of snow in the past week--sometimes 4-6" an hour!  (We've had a mere 14" in Syracuse.)

I taught Psychology in colleges for a number of years.  More recently, I co-taught a graduate course in education online using WebCT.  I have not used blogs for teaching but have kept a private blog for my own learning for several years.

I am very interested in learning how blogs can be used to teach adults because I will be launching a blog to bring together people who are exploring creativity in their everyday lives.  I want to make this a collaborative endeavor.

One blog I really enjoy reading that clearly involves its "audience" is Kathy Sierra's Creating Compassionate Users.  In this post she invites her readers to chime in with whatever they wish, on or off the topic, and gets a wide range of interesting responses.

I'm interested in reading more examples of the use of blogs in higher education and in hearing more of the way it feels for the students to participate in using blogs.  I look forward to reading and sharing.

Derek,
I, too, am very interested in learning more about your experience in combining structure with a person-centered learning environment.  Can you give us more specifics?  How did you include the learners in designing the environment?  What structure did you decide was necessary for you (or your institution)?  Will your students be able to take the things they learned in your course with them into their other courses -- techniques? tools?

After your wonderful weekend, I'd love to hear more about what you did and what you learned. 

Hi everyone,
Today, I am a very happy camper in the US.

I guess 've been a lurker.  I've been reading the conversation in my e-mail but not able to post until now.

My experience with OSS is recent.  In June, when Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 98, I switched to my notebook which is much more powerful than my old computer but didn't have MSOffice.  So I downloaded OpenOffice and made the switch overnight with no problems.  I was already using Firefox.  I added Thunderbird.  Since then I've been exploring Moodle, del.icio.us, add-ons like Cooliris, blogger, bloglines, etc.  (I may have mixed apples, oranges and tomatoes).

I have taught psychology (not clinical) and education courses, and assistant taught an online grad course in Change in Schools.

I'm here because I am learning everything I can about Web 2.0 and education.  I am striving to create an online niche for myself but what it is is not clear to me yet.  Right now I'm a sponge. 

I'll continue to be around.  I appreciate the discussion taking place here.

Rob,
Thanks for your suggestion.  I found my mp3 player--much later I realized it is not a drive but an audio device on the same page as the scanner and the drives.

I explored a lot including Help for Windows Media and trying a variety of tactics.  I seem to be chasing my own tail -- going around in circles.  Rob or anyone else have a suggestion for me to try?
Nancy

I am a rank beginner.  I am very interested in podcasts but first I have to learn to download them and transfer them to my MP3 player ((SanDisk).  I have downloaded itunes from online and have created a playlist in iTunes on my computer.  Now I cannot figure out how to get the playlist to show up on my player computer screen (Windows Media) so I can send it to the player.  I either see the itunes screen list or the WM window on the computer asking for the playlist that is to be transfered.  What am I missing? 

(I bought my first MP3 player after starting the current round of podcast courses; previously I had been listening to the same material in a streaming format.)

In iTunes, I have been successful in subscribing to a couple of podcasts -- yeah!

Maybe I would do better to use a diffent podcatcher?  I chose iTunes because it was widely recommended as easy.

Thanks for your help.